London Rain
by Dezzire
Summary: I want to laugh. So I do, giggling over everything and nothing. I want to cry, and my laughter dissolves into tears. I love him and I hate him, and I lie for hours staring at the ceiling, wondering if he'll ever come back.' My first fic. Strange. DG.


Draco/Ginny, set in Ginny's 7th year. Kind of strange. I wrote this at one in the morning, and it's my first fic, so please go easy.

Disclaimer - JK, unfortunately, owns Ginny and Draco. I take credit to nothing but Cristobal, Viveka, Mary-Ellen Beckman, and Ginny's cat.

I want to laugh. So I do, giggling over everything and nothing. I want to cry, and my laughter dissolves into tears. I love him and I hate him, and I lie for hours staring at the ceiling, wondering if he'll ever come back.

Why do I keep turning back to him? 'If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours'. Isn't that what they all say? After all, there are plenty of fish in the sea, and plenty of boys at Hogwarts, too. But would I let my cat out in the middle of a busy street? He was all I wanted. Perfect.

I look for blissful oblivion in the bottom of a bottle of Firewhisky. It's not there, so I look for it in another, and another, and another, until I've lost track. Lost track of how much I've drank, and lost myself in the pale, cool grey of his eyes.

The next day, I wake up _avec_ a hangover,_ sans _pieces of my soul. The world is completely out of orbit, my supper is displeased with its lodging in my stomach and decides that it would much rather hang out in the toilet, my head pounds just like my heart does whenever I'm near him. I close my eyes, and let my buzzing mind wander.

I remember my first day at Hogwarts. I skipped off such an innocent little girl, shy brown eyes and ruddy braids brighter than the cherry red angora socks I wore. I came prepared for anything, you know - pain and loss and heartbreak. Scorn, amusement, anger. Disgust, sadness, happiness...maybe even love. Ginevra Ryenne Weasley, yes, Ginevra, not Virginia, thank you very much. No, just call me Ginny. That's right, Weasley, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, and Ron's younger sister.

I went off in complete and utter awe of Harry. I suppose it was widely known that I had fallen for him, and fallen for him hard. I'm not sure how obvious I was, but as my best friend Mary-Ellen Beckman put it, whenever I went somewhere he had the faintest chance of being at, I went off with glitter in my hair and stars in my eyes.

And then I met _him._ Him with his sleek silver hair and disdainful silvered eyes, him with his manner that was nothing less than princely, him in all his elegant, bastardly glory. His gaze was so bitter, so full of hatred, that I couldn't help but stop and stare.

"What are you looking at, _Weasley?_" he sneered.

"Nothing, _Malfoy,_" I sniped back, tossed my braids, and swept off. I hated him, I decided, not just because he was a cold, condescending bastard to my family, but because he was a cold, condescending bastard to me, as well.

Who would have thought the cold, condescending bastard could be the reason I sat numbly in my room six and three-quarter fabulous years later, tears sliding down my face in graceful harmony with the London rain pounding the windows in mindless fury?

I really hate the water, you know, whether it be a pond or a lake or even the rain. I'm a sunshiny person, but that's not the only reason. I hate it the way some guys hate their girlfriend's p-e-r-i-o-d. I'm absolutely terrified of drowning, as ridiculous as that sounds. That's why I want to live on a farm in the mountains when I'm old and useless and retire. I loved my godfather's farm when I was a child, still love it now. It was rooted and safe. Solid. In the turmoil of the sixth year, with war on the horizon, it was always there.

And oh, how I loved it! I watered and fussed over the vegetables, loving the feeling that _I _had coaxed them to life. My godmother, seeing how happy I was, cornered off a little section just for me, and it was soon ripe with corn and carrots and potatoes.

I planted flowers, too. Creamy white roses the exact shade of velvet champagne, daffodils that drenched the garden in a riotous sunshine of colour, hyacinths that blossomed into tiny clusters of lavender stars. I worked without magic, liking the feeling of the earth running beneath my fingers.

The farm meant freedom, too. With my brothers all in the war and me still in Hogwarts, it made sense for them to send me there out in the country. Mum and dad, busy in the Order, rarely followed me to Cristobal and Viveka's farm, so it was just us and the horses. They, with no real children of their own, let me go wherever I wished as long as 1.) I wouldn't do something stupid like jump off a cliff and break my neck 2.) I would do my share of the chores like cleaning up after the chickens and 3.) I would be back in time for my meals.

I want to live in the mountains because, well, who doesn't? It feels like you're reaching for the Heavens, which is what mum always encouraged. I stole out of my bedroom at night - Cristobal would later laughingly tell me that he kept the windows open on purpose, and that he had not expected any less from Fred and George's sister - and at 2 in the morning, when the stars sparkled so big and bright, lying with my hand in the ruff of my cat's thick fur daydreaming about him...life just didn't get any better.

Despite the companionship of Cristobal and Viveka, it got awful lonely during the summers. They're warm and sympathetic and lovely, the nicest godparents you could wish for, but I longed for _him_. We are on opposite sides of The War, which makes for a near-impossible romance, but no one knows what he's like underneath the Death Eater's Son image. It takes a while, but once you get underneath the untouchable, Snow King Slyth, he's the best friend you could wish for. There was gentleness in his caresses, tenderness in his eyes, love in his kisses. And yes, warmth in his smile.

Fine, don't believe me. But he truly is a good-hearted person underneath everything. Just scared. Scared and confused, just like the rest of us. We all have different ways of coping. Ron tries to be cheerful about it, cracks jokes and plans crazy pranks that he knows he can never pull off. Then he falls silent. Hermione, now a young woman, looks upon the world with wide gold-flecked cinnamon eyes and a proudly poised head. She immerses herself in books and tries to help in any way possible, whether it be cooking or researching or fighting. And Harry. Dear Harry. His eyes are haunted as no one only 18 years of age should be. But determined, too. He won't go down without avenging his parents and Sirius, and everyone else who had died by the hands of You-Know-Who, and if he goes down, he goes down fighting.

My job is to remain tucked neatly in a corner. Out of sight, out of mind. I'm too young, everyone insists. Still in school, and a girl, to boot. Just concentrate on your books, Ginny, and we'll worry about you later. No, we don't want your help. Maybe later. Right.

He understood. Saw beneath the fiery front I put up. He was always good at that. I suppose that was why he was so successful when antagonizing Harry. He saw clear into everyone's heart and beyond. His mother was like that, so I heard. Narcissa Black was the most beautiful child, mum said, shining gold hair and soft dove-grey eyes and a smile that could light up your very soul.

Narcissa Malfoy was, to quote Ron's oh-so-eloquent words, "a bloody frozen bint". We had stolen away to London for a few days, once, me under the rouse of visiting Lavender, him because his father was away doing whatever Death Eaters did in their spare time (golfing with fellow Death Eaters?) and his mother lets him do whatever he wants. We were simply walking down the street, holding hands like a proper couple, and I asked him if he would be like his mother when he grows up.

_"Like what, Gin?"_

_"All cold and frozen and...dead."  
_

_"You're making her sound like a corpse. My mother isn't dead, she's just...lonely."_

_"Bloody Merlin, anyone married to Lucius Malfoy would be lonely. I bet his idea of entertainment is _crucio_-ing her."_

_"My father is not an abusive person, he's just a cold, condescending bastard."_

_"Riiiight. But seriously. What if you _are_ like your mother when you grow up?"  
_

_"Stop worrying, I won't be."_

_"How do you know?"_

_"Gin, mother was born without a heart. I don't care how sweet and nice and compassionate she was. She might have been happy when she was a child, but she was never _happy_, you know? When she was really young, ten or something, she loved this handsome, popular boy, but he never cared for her. She pined and pined for him, but he hardly noticed she existed, and she was like this withering edelweiss. She never loved again. And when she married father, a part of her just _died_. That's not going to happen to me, Gin."_

_"How do you know?"_

_"Because I love you."_

I had never fully appreciated how lovely the London rain was.

I'll graduate in a month, you know. I'll move out and have my own little flat, and fight for the Order. Fight against You-Know-Who. Fight against him. The professors are piling on the homework, and there's almost no time to do anything but study for my NEWTS. I want to be an Auror, just like Harry. I want to be a hero. I want to save the world.

But every once in a while, early in the morning or late at night when everyone's asleep, I'll sit on the windowsill, watching the rain patter down gently, and I'll think about him. How beautiful he is. How no one knows me like he does. How no one makes me laugh half as hard, cry half as much. How wonderful he is once you know him. I think about how I blossomed under his tutelage, matured under his guidance, drowned in his love.

I still hate the water. I still hate him. And I still love him.

And I still wonder if he'll ever come back.

Like it? Hate it? That purple button down there is your friend /


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